Here I am nearly halfway through my grand adventure through Chongqing and Sichuan. My friend for this part of the trip left, and I’m alone for a couple of days before I head to Chengdu to meet other friends.
I’m a bit tired, and I was looking forward to a couple of days of resting and reflecting and being alone. After my friend left, I read the next chapter in Ann Voskamp’s book, The Broken Way. In this chapter, she talked about how bucket lists are all about trying to fill our lives with meaning in the wrong way. Rather than trying to fill our lives up with meaning through different experiences, we should be focused on pouring ourselves out. Only by dying to ourselves and pouring ourselves out in our brokenness can we find any wholeness.
I love traveling, and while I don’t exactly follow a bucket list anymore, I think that’s more because it would take too much time to write everything down rather than the fact that I don’t have one. Am I looking to traveling to fill me in the wrong way?
I hope not.
So why do I love traveling so much? Lots of people ask me this question, and I want to know if I travel to escape my problems (Obviously that doesn’t work, I’m the same person when I travel—I can’t run away from myself, and any problems are still going to be waiting for me back at home. Plus lots of dead—or living—cockroaches.)
Why do I love traveling? I love making memories with people I love. I love getting to know those people more deeply. I love seeing new places and enjoying God’s beautiful creation. I love meeting new people and seeing lifestyles that are different from mine (I’ve met some really fascinating people on this trip!). I love seeing life from a different perspective.
Traveling doesn’t make any of the problems go away, but I often have a different perspective on the problems when I am away from them. I like being able to talk about things with different people, and I like having time away from my normal life so that when I do go back to it, I can go back to it with a fresh perspective.
There are lots of things about traveling that I don’t like. I don’t like lots of people, and on this trip, I have been to lots of places that are overflowing with people. I don’t like lots of loud noises in a place that I feel should be quiet and peaceful. But all of these people taking pictures and tour guides with microphones and kids who are running around are people with souls and pasts. They each have their own stories and their own struggles.
I met a teenager who couldn’t walk so he road a segway through the Wuling Great Rift Valley. Whenever the boy and his parents got to some stairs, the boy’s dad would carry him down the stairs while his mom carried the segway. Then they would help him onto the segway. Once after my friend and I passed them, he came up and talked to me in English. He asked me all the usual questions, “Where are you from?” and “What do you do in China?”
I was impressed with his English and with his courage, so I agreed to take a picture with him and add his WeChat. And I wonder what that family’s life is like. What are their struggles? What do they do? What are their hopes and dreams for the future?
What about the tour guide who was so sweet but drove me crazy every time she spoke into her microphone because it was so loud? Was she hoping to make a career out of being a tour guide? She didn’t seem very old. Was this just a passing job for her? Many of our tour guides throughout the trip grew up in the areas that they were introducing.
One tour guide on our boat cruise grew up in a village along the river. One of her favorite times of the year was the Spring Festival holiday because they could go into the bigger town. If I understood correctly, she was only able to do that a couple of times a year because it was complicated to leave the village and most of the transportation was by boat. I was on a top level of that boat, and although I could hear our tour guide through the speakers, I didn’t see her until the end of the trip when my friend and I went down to the lower level to take a picture.
The voice finally had a face.
All of these people have their own stories. When I travel, I get to touch lives that I never would have had the chance to touch. What kind of touch is that? Maybe I don’t have the chance to share much about my hope, but am I sharing light or am I sharing my frustration and grumpiness?
Traveling puts me in difficult situations. When I travel, I’m tired. I may not be able to eat when I need to eat. I may get pushed by other tourists who are anxious to get on the subway or excited to get their perfect picture. When these things happen, how do I respond? What kind of person do people see when they see me?
Traveling doesn’t limit my ability to pour out myself in sacrifice, it just changes up the scenery. I think the bigger question here is: What is my focus when I travel? Is my focus on collecting experiences to add to my list of places I’ve been? Is my focus to add more things to my Instagram or my blog or WeChat moments? Is my focus to just have something to do in the summer rather than sitting at home? Is my focus to distract myself from all of my problems?
All of these things could easily be my focus, but I want my focus to be on serving my God whether I’m at home or on the road, whether I’m making memories with friends or brushing lives with someone for just a few moments. Am I being a light right where I am when I’m hungry and tired and sunburnt?
